It takes forever for my fuel meter to go down to the half way mark, but when it hits the 1/4 mark, it moves down REALLY fast.

Is this normal?

 

Yes. The top portion of the tank uses fuel in the filler pipe and the part that is above the float. Once the fuel gets to the floast, it doesn't go down in a linear fashion due to the angle of the rod the float is fixed to. The bottom portion of the tank also has a high slosh facter.

 

aaaaahhhh i seeeee....

the only real explanation i've heard so far

 

Yes its normal. Our fuel gauge is about as accurate as a compass with a magnet next to it. Sometimes I fill up, drive .5 mile home. Turn on the car 30 minutes later and I am 2 bars down already. Then I get 130 miles before I hit the half way point. The gas light comes on 70 miles after that.

 

Why dont they do something about this? It doesnt seem like it would be that hard! My wife's TSX is accurate to the drop.

I dont even go by the meter anymore on the S I just wait until I hit about 300 miles on the trip to fill up.

 

I think our fuel gauges are accurate "enough". We just have to learn to know when to take it seriously or not. We learn that after the car has been abruptly accelerated or decelerated or has just gone up or down and incline, we should take it with a huge grain of salt. We also know that right after a fill up, it's not going to go down uniformly for the reasons I gave above.

I suppose Honda could spend more time to put in a better system, but given the nature of the car, the design of the fuel tank, the rough riding nature of the suspension, the lateral performance capabilities and the tendency for owners to drive the car in a "certain" way, why bother? As you so aptly stated, you have an alternate means of determining how close to empty you really are. Besides, we also know that even after the last light goes out, there is considerable fuel remaining. I would personally rather have a gauge that says empty, give me a high pucker factor till I fuelled up, than to have one that stops dead in its tracks the instant that last light goes out. Having the feeling of impending doom will always compel a person to take more purposeful action, as opposed to being somewhat compacent and actually being stranded with no gas.

 

The warning light came on once and freaked me out. I had the car for 2 months and had no clue how to estimate the amount of fuel left when the light comes on (I've only drove the car for less than 1200km).

I was stuck in New York City traffic in the middle of a HOT summer day for about when the gauge just fell from 3 bars to nothing in minutes. Had to turn everything off, and was stuck in traffic for 20 mins. ... then I got to the gas station, and it only took me 10.5 gallon of gasoline to top it off ...

Nevertheless, I try not to drain out the gas tank as much as possible (especially given that I have a tendency to get stuck in really bad traffic). I heard it's hard on the fuel pump if one constantly drains the oil tank down to the last drop all the time ...

 

300 miles I wish I got that mile I am at the 200 mark, I guess you pay to play though

 

Yeah, provided they have a clue. My wife used to routinely run out of gas in her 325is because her car's onboard computer would tell her she still had 4 miles worth of fuel remaining.
After 3 burned up fuel pumps and endless "I told you so's", I finally convinced her to fill up when it got down to a 1/4 tank..

 

It is normal (if you can call it normal). It was that way with the original MY2000 S2000s, and I guess it is still the same. Here is an old thread of mine dating back to 2001:

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=39246